Integrated circuits have become ubiquitous in many portable electronic products, such as cell phones, portable computers, voice recorders, etc. as well as in many larger electronic systems, such as cars, planes, industrial control systems, etc. Across all applications, there continues to be demand for reducing the size and increasing performance of the devices.
Virtually all electronic products benefit from increasing functions and performance in integrated circuit chips while being designed into ever-smaller physical space. These demands are often very visible with the many consumer electronic products including but not limited to personal portable devices, such as cellular phones, digital cameras, and music players.
Thus, there is a constant drive within the semiconductor industry to reduce dimensional footprints as well as increase quality, reliability, and performance. This drive is fueled by consumer demands for smaller, higher quality computers and electronic devices that operate more reliably.
These demands have resulted in continual improvement in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, e.g., transistors, as well as in the manufacture of integrated circuit packages incorporating such transistors. Additionally, reducing defects in the manufacture of the components including integrated circuit packages also lowers the overall cost of integrated circuit devices.
While stacking integrated circuits within integrated circuit packages has improved dimensional densities and footprints it has not been without problems. Integrated circuit failures have plagued integrated circuit package yields thereby increasing costs and reliability. Attempts to validate the individual integrated circuit devices address only a portion of the problems.
The ever-smaller integrated circuits and electrical connections can be easily damaged during manufacturing processing as well as handling. Protective packaging including encapsulation can protect the fragile circuits and connections once they have been applied. Unfortunately, the process of applying the integrated circuit package can also be a cause of damage.
Despite the advantages of recent developments in integrated circuit manufacturing, there is a continuing need for improving integrated circuit die and integrated circuit package attachment with stacked die and packages to provide improved dimensional sizes and footprints as well as structural integrity and manufacturing yield.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit package system to provide improved die attach, dimensions, and footprint. In view of the increasing demand for improved density of integrated circuits and particularly portable electronic products, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.